Tag: mental health awareness

Halloween has always been a holiday I’ve enjoyed, the pumpkin carving, scary decorations and of course the excuse to dress up as whatever you like! However In recent news supermarket giants Asda and Tesco shocked the nation with their ‘Mental Patient’ Halloween costumes, Asda’s version features the straight jacket covered in blood and a machete, the mask is pretty scary as well! Mental Health charities were outraged by the way the costume represents individuals with mental health disorders and deemed it incredibly bad taste.

The costume retailed at £20 has now been removed from sales, harmless costume or discriminating against mental health? That’s for you to decide. Asda has also decided to donate £25,000 to Mind a mental health charity.

Tesco’s orange jumpsuit deemed ‘Psycho Ward’ was a costume I didn’t see as too harmful due to it reminding me of Hannibal Lecter, famous in films and novels, again this caused outrage and the costume has been withdrawn from the site.

Personally I feel Tesco only opted for this costume due to the rising popularity of the TV series Hannibal rather than considering the offence it may cause.

Female Costumes

Shockingly outrageous mental patient costumes aren’t only marketed towards males, even females have costumes aimed at them including ‘Anna Rexia’.

Im not sure where this costume was being advertised but I feel this is the worse one of them all, Anorexia is a huge problem affecting a lot of individuals so why make it ‘gimmicky’ and into a costume, the costume even includes a measuring tape belt and choker, the fact that they’ve tried to make the costume sexy makes it seem acceptable to have the disorder.

Finally from Joke.co.uk comes the female mental patient costume, a hospital wristband is included to show the ‘patient’ has been committed to hospital. Personally this reminds me of a character you’d find in a Japanese horror film but it is still offensive to categorise it as a mental patient costume. The doll I feel depicts the females fragile mind which could indicate she has a mental health disorder.